The present invention relates generally to outdoor clothing, and in particular to clothing which permits the user to slide downhill with his or her own body without carrying a sled.
It has been a popular activity for children and adults to slide on hills during snowfalls. The traditional ways to enjoy downhill sliding include toboggans, skis, sleds, make shift sleds utilizing boxes with durable bottoms, or plastic sleds carried by the users. The thrill of sliding down a hill has been appreciated for centuries, however the thrill of conventional sledding has been tempered by the fact that the sledder is tethered to the cumbersome sled device and does not feel the increased play value of freely sliding down a hill. Further more, all sledders have to climb back to the top of the hill on their own. The uphill climb is the strenuous part of this activity. The uphill climb becomes more tortuous when people have to carry a sled, which is bulky, heavy and reduces the mobility of the user.
On the other hand, conventional clothing has been unsuitable for sliding. After a few rounds of sliding, the footwear, pants, shirts and other garments of the slider tend to get wet because of active contact between slider's clothing and the thick snow. Additionally, to climb back to the top of hill, requires better traction, so people usually wear sneakers or hiking boots which allow snow to get inside and cause an annoying feel for the climbers.
Waterproof suits have been developed in recent years. They keep the wearer warm in the snow. However they are too bulky and have too many discontinuities in their surfaces or have too much drag against the snow to allow a user to obtain sufficient speed in sliding. Nor do they have sufficient padding to protect the user. They are nothing more than clothing to keep the wearer warm while using conventional sliding equipment such as skis or a sled.
To solve the problem of carrying a bulky sled while maintaining dryness and slidability, some products have been introduced. One of the products is a SnowShort, which is a short pants for use over conventional snow proof clothing. A foam-padded PVC seat is attached to the outside surface of the portion which contacts with the seat of the user. There are a number of stripes arranged on the PVC seat acting as runners to facilitate sliding. By putting on such SnowShort the user is able to slide downhill just by sitting down and without carrying a sled. However this SnowShort allows the user to slide downhill only on their seat with their legs in the air, which leads to a unstable position during the slide. Other parts of the body will unavoidably touch the snow reducing the sliding effect. To prevent the body from getting soaked, users must wear waterproof coat and pants, which reduce the mobility of the user. Furthermore, the use of the SnowShort is limited to one position (sitting) In one direction, along the axis of the stripes.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a suit which overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art described above.